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The need for a dis-ease model for medicine: illness, sickness, disease, disorder and predicament

Author(s):

Simon R. Wilkinson

Abstract:

This paper presents an alternative to the standard medical model with its focus on disease. Medicine has moved to a high technology informed practice to the detriment of a more personalised and family anchored humane practice. This is a major complaint of patients and their carers. Through presenting a developmental perspective to the manner in which we learn to present and manage our discomforts, our primordial dis-ease takes centre-stage. This necessitates an understanding of the interrelationship of illness experience, sickness attributions, medical practice with the predicaments with which are challenged daily.